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- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!

Immigrants from an obscure corner of Mexico are changing heroin use in many parts of America.

Farm boys from a tiny county that once depended on sugar cane have perfected an ingenious business model for selling a semi-processed form of Mexican heroin known as black tar.

Using convenient delivery by car and aggressive marketing, they have moved into cities and small towns across the United States, often creating demand for heroin where there was little or none. In many of those places, authorities report increases in overdoses and deaths.

Immigrants from Xalisco in the Pacific Coast state of Nayarit, Mexico, they have brought an audacious entrepreneurial spirit to the heroin trade. Their success stems from both their product, which is cheaper and more potent than Colombian heroin, and their business model, which places a premium on customer convenience and satisfaction.

Users need not venture into dangerous neighborhoods for their fix. Instead, they phone in their orders and drivers take the drug to them. Crew bosses sometimes call users after a delivery to check on the quality of service. They encourage users to bring in new customers, rewarding them with free heroin if they do.

In contrast to Mexico's big cartels -- violent, top-down organizations that mainly enrich a small group -- the Xalisco networks are small, decentralized businesses. Each is run by an entrepreneur whose workers may soon strike out on their own and become his competitors. They have no all-powerful leader and rarely use guns, according to narcotics investigators and imprisoned former dealers.

Leaving the wholesale business to the cartels, they have mined outsize profits from the retail trade, selling heroin a tenth of a gram at a time. Competition among the networks has reduced prices, further spreading heroin addiction.

"I call them the Xalisco boys," said Dennis Chavez, a Denver police narcotics officer who has arrested dozens of dealers from Xalisco (pronounced ha-LEES-ko) and has studied their connections to other cities. "They're nationwide."

Their acumen and energy are a major reason why Mexican heroin has become more pervasive in this country, gaining market share at a time when heroin use overall is stable or declining, according to government estimates.

The Xalisco retail strategy has "absolutely changed the user and the methods of usage," said Chris Long, a police narcotics officer in Charlotte, N.C., where competition among Xalisco dealers has cut prices from $25 to $12.50 per dose of black-tar heroin. "It's almost like Wal-Mart: 'We're going to keep our prices cheap and grow from there.' It works."

It's long, but the piece confirms my sense that should marijuana decriminalization proceed further in California, this model of the entrepreneurial Mexican heroin pusher is just a glimpse of things to come. Pay attention to the key part one more time, where it notes, "Using convenient delivery by car and aggressive marketing, they have moved into cities and small towns across the United States, often creating demand for heroin where there was little or none. In many of those places, authorities report increases in overdoses and deaths."

The position on the legalization of marijuana provides the point of departure from the traditional libertarianism of Barry Goldwater. In abandoning the duty to enforce social order, today’s libertarians have made a devil’s pact with the pro-drug forces of George Soros and company.

My libertarian friends like to say, “I’m a libertarian, not a libertine.” But though many of the advocates of libertarianism lead socially conservative lives, their agendas promote libertinism — especially when it comes to legalizing drugs. They forget that the moral order they have inherited is put at even further risk as laws change to allow more destructive behavior.

The libertinism Mary rejects is precisely the soft underbelly of vulnerability that black heroin pushers of Mexico will exploit. But drug decriminalization proponents will continue to say "no one has ever died from smoking marijuana," blah, blah ... Surging death statistics will be along shortly ...

5
comments:

Amy
said...

"Among the idiosyncrasies of Xalisco dealers is that they generally do not sell to African Americans or Latinos. Instead, they have focused on middle- and working-class whites, believing them to be a safer and more profitable clientele, according to narcotics investigators and former dealers. "They're going to move to a city with many young white people," Chavez said. "That's who uses their drug and that's who they're not afraid of.""

I am a doctor and have been for 40 years. When I was younger, I thought that drugs should be strictly regulated and that people should have access only through their physician. I did 22 years of private practice with that attitude, then semi-retired and went to the medical school as a professor. I was in a situation where I saw first hand the results of our nation’s drug policy. First, it does not work. I can get illegal drugs easier than going to get my prescriptions. And with far less hassle. Then there are the consequences to our policy. I would estimate that if drugs were made legal that the hospital in which I was working would drop its population by about 25%. And it was on of the most populated in the country. And, yes, I am taking into consideration hospitalizations associated with drug use. In our country, legal drugs would just about stop AIDS and Hep C. Then there is endocarditis and other illnesses that add enormous amounts to our medical bill.

I haven't even touched on the loss of freedom that we have all had as a result of the "war on drugs" concept. Many very conservative doctors are turning to the concept of legalization. Think of this, if you need a medication you could go to the drug store and buy it. No doctor appointment, no waiting in the waiting room for hours, no begging for the pain meds you need and so forth. The result of legalization? 10 to 20% of our country would be dependent on them which is the same as it is now. Prior to 1913 you could get anything you desired in the drug store, now you are hassled over decongestants. Doctors would still have a place; you need someone to tell you how to use the meds. But all logic says that we are doing nothing now. Addiction is also not understood. The people who are addicted to drugs would be addicted to dirt if they thought it did something. We do not need laws that penalize all of us when only a handful are abusive.

Lets return some freedom to us and start remove regulation of drugs. Imagine the amount of money this would save? Then we can begin work on the other freedoms we need back such as airport security, and on and on.

For your argument to work, you would have to prove we're a more virtuous society today, than we were prior to the Drug War. I don't think that argument can be made. Are we more virtuous than we were in say 1910?

Also, it's not a matter of what is or is not bad for a person, it's a matter of what we're willing to point a gun at someone over, and/or takeaway their God-given right to be free. Yes, everything illegal is enforced at the barrel of a gun.

If you saw your next door neighbor, a nice guy who causes nobody any harm, light up a joint in his backyard ... Do you as an individual have the inalienable right to point a gun at his head and order him not to smoke it? Then perhaps take some of his money (fine) for doing so? Or lock him up?

If you don't, then you have no power to extend to the government. How can a person be born with the natural right to use force against someone smoking a joint?

My father is dying of cancer. The doctors have done everything they could. He worries about the "stigma," but I've told him to talk to his doctors about it. He's dying. Nothing else works. Do you have the inalienable right to use force against my father if he ever decides to try smoking weed?

I know I have the inalienable right to protect him from such force. But of course, our omnipotent government doesn't give a rat's behind about inalienable rights.

There are of course arguments that can be made regarding certain circumstances with certain drugs in regards to being illegal, but marijuana? Jefferson and Washington farmed the stuff! It helped fund WWII!

Natural rights trumps all ... or what's the point? If we choose to ignore natural rights, we might as well flush the Declaration down the toilet and all the great conservative and libertarian philosophical works with it!

Society, say 100 years ago, wasn't less virtuous than today, even though marijuana was legal, nor do you have the right to point a gun at my dying father's head if he chooses to smoke a joint. These are the real arguments. The rest is just noise.

We are seeing a lot youth turning to BTH, especially in California due to its availability and price. It's become the "hip" thiWe are seeing a lot youth turning to BTH, especially in California due to its availability and price. It's become the "hip" thing to do. It's truly astonishing that something so destructive to one's health is popular. You said decriminilizing marijuana (which does not kill btw, no proof of that) would cause even more destruction. You are right on that because I think there would be a trickle down ng to do. It's truly astonishing that something so destructive to one's health is popular. You said decriminilizing marijuana (which does not kill btw, no proof of that) would cause even more destruction. You are right on that; assuming marijuana is a complementary good of hard drugs, decriminalization and lower prices will likely cause a spike in demand for hard drugs.

However, I assume your stance on legalization and decriminalization on a whole is to be against it, and that is where we disagree. Lower prices and decriminalization would traditionally cause an increase in demand, but with less ease of access as well as being under a controlled environment, users and overall demand will decline. Drug cartels and so called retailers will have less power and capital, and your nation will no longer have to add to its deficit with the war on drugs.